Damascus Riddle-An Area Which The Syrian Forces Have Never Attacked ~ " Century Fox Post "

Nour Malas/The Wall Street Journal

Seen from Ain el-Fijeh, the Barada River Valley, outside Damascus, has become an opposition haven.

AIN EL-FIJEH, Syria—A short drive from downtown Damascus, where fighting surged again Wednesday between government and opposition forces, the rebel-held villages of the Barada Valley have been puzzlingly quiet.

For decades, Damascus families sheltered from the summer heat at the riverview restaurants of Ain el-Fijeh, a village just 15 miles up a mountain road from the capital. Now, the entrance to the village's municipal building has been painted with the design of Syria's rebel flag. Government office blocks bear graffiti reading "Independent Ain el-Fijeh." Opposition fighters train in nearby orchards.

In Ain el-Fijeh, several villagers wonder if they will be next—and, if not, why regime forces haven't returned since earlier attacks.For weeks, residents of Ain el-Fijeh have listened to the near-daily shelling of Zabadani, a town about nine miles away. On Wednesday, fighting raged in the other direction, too, as Damascus residents said Syrian government tanks and helicopters attacked the capital's southern neighborhoods of Kafar Souseh and Nahr Aisha. At least 43 people were killed in the shelling and mortar attacks, activist groups said, including 24 men in Kafar Souseh who activists said appeared to have been shot in the head.

Many in this village, home to 6,000 people, say local rebels outfoxed the government. Regime forces dispatched tanks and armored vehicles twice against Ain el-Fijeh earlier this year after residents began taking up arms, residents say. But government troops aborted their last attempted attack, in April, as local fighters consolidated control over a pumping station that sends drinking water from Fijeh's ancient spring to Damascus, say residents and the rebels who control the spring.

It isn't clear whether the government took any threat to the capital's water supply seriously; more skeptical locals believe the government will fight opponents here sooner or later.

The enclave's existence has many residents wondering about the Syrian military's strategy and strength against opposition forces. In ceding control in this area, while bigger fights rage in Aleppo and Damascus, the regime appears to have given the opposition the space to turn the 14 villages of the surrounding Wadi Barada, or the Barada River Valley region, into a haven.

"We have boycotted the state completely here," a 28-year-old defected first lieutenant who leads the Wadi Barada Military Council said in Deir Qanoun, another village in the valley, which has about 90,000 residents in all. "We don't pay for electricity anymore. Cars don't pay registration. We still get all services," said the lieutenant, known to people here as Abu Zein, or Zein's father.

The mountains between Damascus and the Lebanon border have been bitterly contested between government and rebel forces. The regime has continued to make incursions into nearby Zabadani after it briefly fell to local fighters in January, rebel fighters say. These fighters allege the town lies along a transit route for weapons between the Syrian regime and its ally Hezbollah, the militant and political group, in Lebanon. Syria's government denies trading weapons with Hezbollah.

But regime forces have lost control of other nearby towns, including in the Barada valley.

The Syrian military hasn't deployed its full capability in and around Damascus, military analysts and several observers say. The military barely used its tank arsenal to fight the boldest rebel attack on the capital last month, according to United Nations monitors in Syria whose mission expired last week.

Some monitors who had visited Damascus conflict zones noted a strategy of bombardment from afar—relying more on machine-gun attacks from helicopters or long-range tank guns, rather than sending troops to fight. That, they said, could suggest a dearth of reliable soldiers to staff ground operations as the government's elite, loyalist units have been spread across the country.

Some rebels argue government forces may have a strategy of neglect in these areas—periodically prodding towns that first rose in peaceful protest until their residents militarize, and then turning a blind eye while they become hubs for fighters that the military can later stamp out.

Joined by rocky mountain roads and lush apple and peach orchards, Wadi Barada's villages are populated mainly by members of Syria's Sunni Muslim majority. Ain el-Fijeh and other villages here erupted in early protests last year against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Local elders mediated with the security forces, leaving the townspeople to protest freely until that June, when, residents say, government forces started to open fire on protests. In response, men picked up their hunting rifles and women hurled stones at tanks, several residents said.

The first fatality here was Fatima Nasrullah, a mentally handicapped woman in her 30s. She was shot as she stood on her balcony throwing pebbles at a tank column on the street, residents say.

By January, residents here had started to help smuggle weapons in from Lebanon to the Damascus suburbs, and sent 300 men to help fight in Zabadani.

"After this, we were in the eye of the storm," said a young engineer, now a trainee with the local rebel council.

In February, after a six-hour battle with government forces, rebels claimed control of the Fijeh spring. General Mohammad Dib Zeitoun, Syria's head of political security, intervened to ask rebels to put guards at the spring infrastructure, three rebel leaders said.

The rebels agreed, and let a member of the security forces stand guard at the main spring source. When troops attacked the concrete pump building in March, the locals expelled the security agent.

"Honestly, we simply asked him to leave," said Abu Zein, the rebel commander.

Rebels say they didn't cut the water to the capital because they didn't want to harm the population.

Now, locals can be heard cursing President Assad on the streets and in line at the vegetable market, often to the surprise of the many families taking refuge here from other hot spots around Damascus.

Puzzled by the regime's apparent inattention but anticipating an attack if the battle for Aleppo fizzles, fighters here say they keep their activities secret even from family members. They sneak away to orchards they have turned into training grounds, where they say they have been joined by fighters from Damascus.

Abu Zein and two other fighters pointed out what they said were government sniper positions in the next mountain range, toward Lebanon. Gunshots echoed. The fighters said the rounds weren't from snipers, but from some two dozen rebels drilling in the orchards.

A young mother sat facing the trio, her 6-year-old daughter grabbing at her leg. Hearing for the first time that her lifelong neighbors—one a handyman, the other a salesman—are leaders with the local rebel military council, she pleaded with them to better organize themselves.

"You must fight harder," she said. Invoking what village residents call their first martyr, she added: "For poor Fatima's lost soul."

The men nodded. Their first advance on Damascus was poorly planned, they admitted, saying they learned about it at the last minute. Abu Zein also promised to balance the destruction of fighting with the revival of their village, once a popular tourist spot. "We will bring this place back," he said. "For now, we are just waiting to see what the war will bring."